Allie the cat loves iPads. She loves going to bed listening to music on her iPad. She likes listening to Michael Jackson’s, “Lady in My Life” and “Human Nature”. She knows some of the words. During the day she is busy. She likes playing “App for Cats”, an iPad game for cats. Later in the day, she watches businesses news on CNBC and she likes to listen to business leaders like, Steve Jobs on the new iPad. What can I say, she is a very busy person.

Dutch educators and politicians are proposing to fulfill Steve Jobs’ vision and create a school where students are taught with iPads. The proposal will be presented on Monday in Amsterdam. The plan, called Education for a New Era, is designed to help students learn “21st century skills” and push the limits of what can be done in a classroom.

If the proposal goes through, the “Steve Jobs schools” would open their doors in August 2013. In his biography of Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson shared a story of Jobs’ meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama. Along with sharing his displeasure at the difficulty in building a factory in the United States, he also disassembled America’s education system.

It was absurd, he added that American classrooms were still based on teachers standing at a board and using textbooks. All books, learning materials, and assessments should be digital and interactive, tailored to each student and providing feedback in real time.

Jobs wanted to hire great textbook writers to create digital versions, and make them a feature of the iPad. He wanted to make textbooks free and bundled with the iPad, and believed such a system would give states the opportunity to save money.

Earlier this year, Apple rolled out a digital textbook initiative. The company partnered with McGraw-Hill, Pearson, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt — the three companies together control 90% of the textbook market in the U.S. — and is focusing on high school textbooks initially. Apple presumably wants to expand the project to include all grade levels, and eventually fulfill Jobs’ vision of a digital classroom.

Source: Macrumors

I picked up these goodies from the Apple campus store in Cupertino, CA. I bought a coffee mug, a water bottle, a pen, a mouse pad and a beanie cap. The quality and design of the merchandise is impressive, just like Apple products. As an Apple shareholder I am impressed with the detail Apple puts into everything that bears its logo. The coffee mug takes the cake, simply gorgeous and it comes with a carry case, which came handy on my trip to LA. Only the Great Steve Jobs could have thought of that. The best part, all the goodies cost me under $100. What a deal!

CNBC is reporting that HP (HPQ) is merging it PC and Printer divisions. HP is struggling to find its place in the “Post PC Era”, where users are moving to tablets like Apple’s iPad (AAPL) and as a result printing less. HP is getting hit on both of its big division PCs and Printers. The merger of the divisions it expected to unleash a major layoff, the likes of which have not been seen in Silicon Valley since the dot com bust.

CNBC is reporting that HP (HPQ) is merging its PC and Printer units. HP is struggling to find its place in the “Post PC Era”, where users are moving to tablets like Apple’s iPad (AAPL), and as a result they are printing less. PC and Printers are big business for HP, and its is getting hit big on both as a result of tablets. The merger of the divisions it expected to unleash a major layoff, the likes of which have not been seen in Silicon Valley since the dot com bust.

Apple took the world by storm Sunday night, California time, when it issued a press release announcing a conference call to be held before market open on Monday. Apple said that it would discuss only its “cash” position on the conference call. There is much speculation that the announcement will be about a dividend; a one time special dividend or a recurring annual dividend. Others say that it may be a share buyback. Then there are other, that say that it could be an acquisition. I think that Apple will announce that, it has already done the buyback. This will quite the people that are pre-occupied with its cash position because its cash position will no longer be and issue, allowing Apple’s management to get back to focusing on the company and its great products. This solution benefits shareholders and still keeps the growth investors, interested in the stock. It also explains the run up in Apple shares every single day since Q1 earnings. I believe only Apple could have been buying its shares. They knew it was just too undervalued. Further, it explains the short notice leading to the conference call, and its short duration as Apple will have little to say. I believe, this move was not accidental. I believe it was a move engineered by the Great Steve Jobs. The heavy volume this past week can be explained now, as Apple was rushing to complete the buyback. So it was the invisible hand of Steve Jobs moving Apple shares.

Five megatrends are combining to bring about the “post PC era”. According to Gartner, these forces will bring about the end of the PC era by 2014. These megatrends have roots that extend back through the past decade but are aligning in a new way.

Megatrend No. 1: Consumerization — You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet

Gartner has discussed the consumerization of IT for the better part of a decade, and has seen the impact of it across various aspects of the corporate IT world. However, much of this has simply been a precursor to the major wave that is starting to take hold across all aspects of information technology as several key factors come together:

– Users are more technologically savvy and have very different expectations of technology.

– The Internet and social media have empowered and emboldened users.

– The rise of powerful, affordable mobile devices changes the equation for users.

– Users have become innovators.

– Through the democratization of technology, users of all types and status within organizations can now have similar technology available to them.

Megatrend No. 2: Virtualization — Changing How the Game Is Played

Virtualization has improved flexibility and increased the options for how IT organizations can implement client environments. Virtualization has, to some extent, freed applications from the peculiarities of individual devices, operating systems or even processor architectures. Virtualization provides a way to move the legacy of applications and processes developed in the PC era forward into the new emerging world. This provides low-power devices access to much-greater processing power, thus expanding their utility and increasing the reach of processor-intensive applications.

Megatrend No. 3: “App-ification” — From Applications to Apps

When the way that applications are designed, delivered and consumed by users changes, it has a dramatic impact on all other aspects of the market. These changes will have a profound impact on how applications are written and managed in corporate environments. They also raise the prospect of greater cross-platform portability as small user experience (UX) apps are used to adjust a server- or cloud-resident application to the unique characteristics of a specific device or scenario. One application can now be exposed in multiple ways and used in varying situations by the user.

Megatrend No. 4: The Ever-Available Self-Service Cloud

The advent of the cloud for servicing individual users opens a whole new level of opportunity. Every user can now have a scalable and nearly infinite set of resources available for whatever they need to do. The impacts for IT infrastructures are stunning, but when this is applied to the individual, there are some specific benefits that emerge. Users’ digital activities are far more self-directed than ever before. Users demand to make their own choices about applications, services and content, selecting from a nearly limitless collection on the Internet. This encourages a culture of self-service that users expect in all aspects of their digital experience. Users can now store their virtual workspace or digital personality online.

Megatrend No. 5: The Mobility Shift — Wherever and Whenever You Want

Today, mobile devices combined with the cloud can fulfill most computing tasks, and any tradeoffs are outweighed in the minds of the user by the convenience and flexibility provided by the mobile devices. The emergence of more-natural user interface experiences is making mobility practical. Touch- and gesture-based user experiences, coupled with speech and contextual awareness, are enabling rich interaction with devices and a much greater level of freedom. At any point in time, and depending on the scenario, any given device will take on the role of the user’s primary device — the one at the center of the user’s constellation of devices.

Intel has been talking to media companies about delivering pay-TV programming, and has even begun requesting rate cards to see how much it would cost to license shows.

That’s according to the Wall Street Journal, which says the service would use Intel-made set-top boxes, an Intel interface, and might even carry the Intel brand. The service could come out late this year.

This sounds doomed from the get-go.

Every other effort by tech companies to replace TV has failed. Google TV, Boxee — none of them have dented the growth of pay-TV services at all. Cable TV providers have seen some defections, but mostly to phone companies providing TV over fiber networks, like Verizon and AT&T.

It’s really hard to see Intel succeeding where other tech companies have failed. It doesn’t sell to consumers. It has no experience in the media business.

It doesn’t even have a great track record providing hardware to the TV business, either. Intel had a partnership with Google for the first generation of Google TV, but Google reportedly switched to ARM-based technology and Intel shut down the group making the processors for the box.

Source: SAI

AT&T has already sold out of the new 4G iPad, reports BGR. Customers hoping to get the new iPad at the same time as its debut date will now have to wait until March 19th. However, at Verizon 4G iPads are still available to be delivered by the debut date, though BGR believes that will change soon as well. Apple’s new iPad starts at $499 and will be available to purchase in stores on March 16th.

At the end of the new iPad launch event, the Apple put it logo on the stage. It looked different to what the company was putting up before, which was silver. The new logo sort of looks like the old logo. Here is evolution of Apple’s logo from Gizmodo.